Evolution in Entertainment: A Recap of the 2019 Entertainment & Media Conference

On Sunday March 31, approximately 300 people gathered at the Harvard Business School campus to attend the Entertainment & Media Conference. This year’s theme, “Evolution in Entertainment”, drew a wide range of attendees from top entertainment professionals to students from various MBA programs, and over 30 speakers who are at the frontiers of change in entertainment.

Hosted by HBS’s Entertainment & Media Club, the conference each year brings industry leaders to campus to share their experiences and insights from the film, television, digital, social media, publishing, agencies, music, sports, gaming, and creative sectors. By gathering a diverse group of talent, we hoped to facilitate conversations about the key trends and questions in the industry, and provide a setting for professional growth and networking.

Our conference theme this year - “Evolution in Entertainment” - was inspired by the many forces shaping the future of entertainment & media: digital transformation, globalization, representation, creative trends, and changing dynamics in media investment. These trends have created new opportunities for players in the industry to share a wide variety of content in new ways.

Our three keynote speakers came from diverse backgrounds, and are at the forefront of evolution in entertainment: Albert Cheng, COO and Co-Head of TV at Amazon Studios, Gigi Pritzker, CEO of Madison Wells Media, and Courtenay Valenti, President of Production and Development at Warner Bros. Pictures. Albert, Gigi, and Courtenay represented transformational forces across both traditional and new formats of entertainment, and shared their diverse experiences and views on some of the most salient topics facing the entertainment industry today.

A new addition to this year’s conference was a featured panel focused on content creation. We were inspired (and very much entertained by their banters) by Chris Brancato (Creator of Narcos), Chris Moore (Executive Producer of Manchester By the Sea), Julie Plec (Creator and showrunner of Vampire Diaries, Originals, etc.), and Jessica Levine (Producer of Divorce, True Detective).

Through the breakout panels, the attendees were able to deep dive on a wide range of topics across the industry landscape, from diversity and globalization, to digitalization and investment trends. Speakers representing companies including Tencent Pictures, ByteDance, F1, Audible, CNN, ABC, HBO, WME, Fox, Lionsgate, Netflix, Hemisphere Capital, and MRC built on each others’ thoughts in answering moderator and student questions.

Professors Henry McGee and Professor Anita Elberse were instrumental in making the conference a success. The Entertainment & Media Club’s conference team and volunteers worked tirelessly to put together the slate of programming that resulted in a flurry of appreciation notes from attendees post the conference: